


Not for me

by StarsAreMassive



Series: Sworn Sisters [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Gen, Gendrya - Freeform, OR IS IT, Rickon Lives, Season 8, Show and Book Canon, Starks in Winterfell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 12:46:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18550042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsAreMassive/pseuds/StarsAreMassive
Summary: Arya learns of the fall out after Sansa's talk with Gendry.





	Not for me

**Author's Note:**

> And we're back with part II.  
> Just remember folks, this is told from Gendry's pov, as he sees things.

Gendry had learned by now, how to put his anger to work. Tobho Mott had never allowed him to sulk or simmer in his shop.  _‘Don’t know how good you have it, boy. You want to be out there with the gutter rats – no bed to sleep in at night? No food in your belly? I’d have a line of boys out the door to take your place before you could even get a foot out.’_

He used it to fuel him. He would hammer out impossible dents. He’d work on pieces that needed the hottest fire, the quickest reshaping. He’d plough through the backlog of work that needed doing and use his body to tire out his mind.

He’d replayed his encounter with the Lady Sansa over in his head as he repaired armour and swords, and made ironwork needed for the castle. He even took a commission for a pendant, though he was far from a silversmith. Anything to drown out the poisonous whispers she had stirred up in his mind.

_“Who are you to my sister?”_

_Why did you think you could be someone to her?_

_She’s a Lady._

_She will marry Ned Dayne._

_You are nothing to her._

It hadn't gone unnoticed, his blackness. He worked them like Tobho had worked him. Hard. Merciless, even. But because he expected the best. He wouldn't let anything less than that leave his forge. The smiths under him cursed him for it. He'd seen them spit on the floor and glare at him, or grumble into their cups and bowls whilst nursing sore muscles and burns. But whenever he'd offer the door, just like Mott had done, they'd all stayed with him. But even that miserly, oddly loyal lot had given him a wide berth lately as his temper simmered hotter than normal. It wasn't until he'd shattered an axe head, that he;d finally forced himself to stop. He felt his smiths eyeing him, felt them teeter on the edge of approaching him and by the gods he had no idea what he'd do if they did -

But then Daryn, a little  brown-haired messenger boy for the Starks, came scurrying into the forge and shoved a summons into his hands from Jon, commanding him to the evening meal _and don't even think of working into the night again Gendry, or I will come down there and drag you out myself._

Fucking perfect.

Gendry tore off his apron, dropped it in the dust and stalked out the door. Over the blood rushing in his ears, he didn't notice that the tinking and bangs of his forge didn’t pick up again until he’d turned the corner.

So much for distractions. He could avoid Lady Sansa well enough. it was nothing to feign that he’d gotten tied up at the forge, or to duck around corners whenever he spotted someone craning their heads over the crowd with a note in hand. But ignoring a direct order from the King in the North was another thing entirely. He’d have to sit there and see Arya with Sansa’s words ringing around in his head, and watch Ned Dayne staring and smirking at her like he always did, reminding her yet  _again_  that he was named after her father, and fawning all over her, pouring her drinks and asking her to dance, and laughing –

Gendry fucking hated Ned Dayne. Stupid high born who had never been anything but nice to anyone. Gendry didn’t trust it for a second.

But there was nothing for it. Even if he was trudging with heavy steps, he was still doing so in the direction of the bath house. After all, he doubted very much indeed that Dayne had soot under his fingernails.

* * *

 His black mood hadn’t gone unnoticed. His smiths sat far from him at the table – that misguided loyalty of theirs rearing its head again. Only Davos and Tormund came to sit next to him, and Davos kept shooting him those concerned looks and Tormund was taking a sick, gleeful kind of joy in trying to provoke him. Fucking wildlings.

Arya had breezed in, late as usual. When she spotted him, she grinned with sharp teeth and bright eyes – so openly happy to see him, and not hiding it from anyone – that something sharp stabbed at his heart. Her sister was planning Arya’s marriage to another as they sat here and ate, and Arya was none the wiser. And Gendry just didn’t have it in him to pretend everything was alright. He scowled heavily and glared at his bowl of stew.

“Keep staring at it like that, and you’ll boil it all over again,” Davos jibed next to him. “What’s the secret, lad? What that bowl of brown ever do to you?”

Gendry pushed it away and pulled his tankard closer. He was still on his first. He wasn’t one for losing himself in drink. Ale was good and well, but there was nothing worse than a forge when you’d drank too much the night before. And wine? Well, Gendry couldn’t stomach the thought of it anymore.

“Ah, what else?” Tormund exclaimed across from them. “It’s a girl, isn’t it? It’s always a girl that makes a man miss his meals. I saw you glaring at the little Stark. What’s the matter – has she passed you over?”

Gendry felt Davos shift and Tormund cursed,  _“Fuck! I’m only teasing Davos – can’t your boy take a teasing?!”_ , but he looked away, trying to ignore the pair of them. He saw him then. Ned Dayne, with his golden head, and eyes that were almost Targaryen-like. The one who turned many a girl’s head when he walked by. A little lord that wasn’t so little anymore and smiled wide and freely, in a way that he never could. Gendry watched as he easily made friends with the strangers at his table. He watched as he pulled smiles from people, acted with effortless manners, and throughout it all, always flick his eyes back to the top table and Arya Stark.

Not that she seemed to notice. Arya looked glum, swirling her drink around in her goblet and playing with her food. Jon and Sansa and Bran made no attempt to talk to her – maybe they already had, and she had ignored them. Rickon next to her chattered away, happy with her silence, apparently.

Gendry felt a flush of shame. It wasn’t arrogance that told him he’d put her in this mood. When she’d left earlier that day, he’d sent her off with a laugh and promises to step on her toes if there was dancing at the feast. When she’d returned, he’d only scowled at her.

He couldn’t take it. It had been long enough. He could leave without offending anyone. He stood abruptly, but the revelry was high and no one paid him any mind. He shoved his tankard – still nearly full – into Tormund’s empty hand and turned around and walked out before Davos could say whatever Gendry had seen him gearing up to say.

He loved Davos, but he was in no mind for fatherly concern or advice.

The night was cold and biting. It always was up here, and he suspected it would be in the summer, too. But Gendry welcomed it. The nip at his skin was soothing from the heat of his ire and the blush of his guilt.

He’d never had it put before him like that, shoved so directly into his face that he was forced to acknowledge what he’d known all along. When they were on the road together, she'd spoken in sad whispers about her lord father and King brother, but the stories she'd told him were said with such fondness that he almost felt as if they were his family, too. When they travelled with the brotherhood, they'd called her princess often enough. But it was such an odd idea when she walked next to him covered in dirt and stinking - just like him - that he'd never paid much mind to it. But now it wasn't odd. It wasn't odd at all. 

Arya was a lady. She could curse and ride and fight all day. She could insist until she had ran out of breath that she wasn’t one. But the truth was unavoidable. She was a Lady. If she married, she was meant for a Lord.

She and him. It was a dream. Her sister had woken him up.

His feet slammed against the flagstone as he strode towards the forge. Sleep wouldn’t find him, he knew. His heart was too heavy, his thoughts too bitter. A long night of work lay ahead of him.

He hadn’t heard the light steps running behind him. Halfway to his forge and finding some kind of oblivion, a small hand grabbed at his neck, and the next thing he knew, he was being punched around the head.

He hunched over, one arm protecting himself against the blows, and the other reaching up to wrap around a lithe waist and push his assailant away.

“That’s for being a complete shit!” she hissed at him.

Gendry straightened up, breathing hard and stared back at her. Her hair was falling from its braid in wild strands. Her eyes were hard, her teeth were bared. She looked as angry as he felt.

Gods but she was beautiful.

“I apologise if I’ve displeased m’lady.”

There was stillness for a moment, but Gendry caught that flash behind her eyes. Arya flew at him again, shot straight past his arms outstretched to stop her attacks, and pushed him hard.

“What’s crawled up your arse since I left?” she demanded, breath hot against his face.

He huffed and tried to step back, but she grabbed him, squeezing his skin through his cloths until it hurt, and stepped forward with every retreat he tried to make.

“Your sister will be missing you,” he spat, and hoped she didn’t hear how his voice wavered.

A fool’s hope.

Arya stilled. His arms hung by his side and he couldn’t look at her. He stared over her shoulder and she took another impossible step forward.

“My sister? What does Sansa have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, m’la-“

“Stop that! –“

“I just don’t think she’d be best pleased to see you outside with me.”

Something like understanding passed over Arya’s features – like a puzzle was clicking into place. Her brows rose like they did when she couldn’t quite believe what she’s just heard, or seen, and became indignant. She cocked her head in a way Gendry knew to be trouble. She shifted her weight in her feet like she was preparing for a fight,

“Gendry.” Her voice was low and soft. “What did Sansa do?”

He bit his lip and tasted copper. He stepped back. Arya twitched but didn’t follow. “Your place is inside. Your family will be waiting. Ned’ll notice, too. Best be off with you, now.”

And there it was. He saw horror in her face as she finally understood what was going on. She gaped, her breaths came short, and he took the chance to put a better distance between them. He’d have to do that, now. All of the time. No more noon meals in his forge. No more following her out on some ridiculous ride she insisted he needed to go on. No more sparring. No more teasing. No more little hands brushing soot off his face, or sweet-smelling hair tangled round his fingers as he tried to put it in a clumsy braid.

No more Arya. Not for him.

Gendry’s breath shuddered and he stared at the ground. “Goodnight, my lady.”

And he span in his heel and left.

She didn’t call after him.


End file.
